More Jeep Adventures - of a different variety

Back in Ouray, Devin threw his keys on the dash at a restaurant, and when he retrieved them, there were less keys... it was then that we noticed the black hole that exists between the windshield and the dash in our Jeep! Looking with flashlights, we spotted the rest of the keys wedged between some wires behind the speedometer panel. We used a coat hanger and tried to fish them out, but only succeeded in pushing them down further to where we could neither see nor access them from any point above or below the dash.

We thought maybe some good bumpy four wheel drive adventures would jiggle them loose and they would fall onto the floor, but no such luck. Devin consulted the Jeep forum and got all sorts of commiseration and advice, ranging from "bummer" to tales of items they'd lost, and advice from take it apart, take off the dash, take down the windshield, and my personal favorite, "take it to the dealer and tell them there is a rattle and let them take it apart, and when they find the keys, say "what do you know?! Those are my wife's keys - she didn't mention she'd lost them!"" ha.

Well, after having tried most other things, such as taking off various panels, center console, stereo, etc, Devin finally decided to take the windshield down today. About 4pm we heard thunder, and Devin radioed asking if we had a tarp. Ha. The Jeep was completely taken apart - the windshield laying down on the hood, the hard top off and resting on the tailgate, the dash torn apart, front roll bars hanging akimbo. Devin thought that people driving through the campground would think we had stolen it and were stripping it for parts. A couple of people did stop - the usual, "how do you like your new Jeep?" questions ("fine, except for the key-eating dash hole!")

And guess what? Still no keys. We both tried a while and different techniques to at least see the missing keys, but no such luck. More poking about with the coat hanger, but not even a jingle. Wherever they are, they are well-wedged and I doubt we'll ever find them at this point. With both of us working, we got the Jeep put back together in about an hour. So now Devin has taken the windshield down and he'll never do it again! Why anyone would want to drive, even off-road with the doors and top off, without a windshield, is beyond me. Especially when taking the windshield down removes the front seat roll cage protection! That feature seems like a relic of the Jeep's days in the army, when you could mount a machine gun on the hood and shoot while driving through enemy territory. Not really needed so much any more. Though it all would have been worth it if we had retrieved the keys. Sigh.